Whether the Angels Know Material Things?
Objection 1: It would seem that the angels do not know material
things. For the object understood is the perfection of him who
understands it. But material things cannot be the perfections of
angels, since they are beneath them. Therefore the angels do not
know material things.
Obj. 2: Further, intellectual vision is only of such things as exist
within the soul by their essence, as is said in the gloss [*On 2 Cor.
12:2, taken from Augustine (Gen. ad lit. xii. 28)]. But the material
things cannot enter by their essence into man's soul, nor into the
angel's mind. Therefore they cannot be known by intellectual vision,
but only by imaginary vision, whereby the images of bodies are
apprehended, and by sensible vision, which regards bodies in
themselves. Now there is neither imaginary nor sensible vision in
the angels, but only intellectual. Therefore the angels cannot know
material things.
Obj. 3: Further, material things are not actually intelligible, but
are knowable by apprehension of sense and of imagination, which does
not exist in angels. Therefore angels do not know material things.
_On the contrary,_ Whatever the lower power can do, the higher can do
likewise. But man's intellect, which in the order of nature is
inferior to the angel's, can know material things. Therefore much
more can the mind of an angel.
_I answer that,_ The established order of things is for the higher
beings to be more perfect than the lower; and for whatever is
contained deficiently, partially, and in manifold manner in the lower
beings, to be contained in the higher eminently, and in a certain
degree of fulness and simplicity. Therefore, in God, as in the highest
source of things, all things pre-exist supersubstantially in respect
of His simple Being itself, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. 1). But among
other creatures the angels are nearest to God, and resemble Him most;
hence they share more fully and more perfectly in the Divine goodness,
as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. iv). Consequently, all material things
pre-exist in the angels more simply and less materially even than in
themselves, yet in a more manifold manner and less perfectly than in
God.
Now whatever exists in any subject, is contained in it after the
manner of such subject. But the angels are intellectual beings of
their own nature. Therefore, as God knows material things by His
essence, so do the angels know them, forasmuch as they are in the
angels by their intelligible species.
Reply Obj. 1: The thing understood is the perfection of the one who
understands, by reason of the intelligible species which he has in
his intellect. And thus the intelligible species which are in the
intellect of an angel are perfections and acts in regard to that
intellect.
Reply Obj. 2: Sense does not apprehend the essences of things, but
only their outward accidents. In like manner neither does the
imagination; for it apprehends only the images of bodies. The
intellect alone apprehends the essences of things. Hence it is said
(De Anima iii, text. 26) that the object of the intellect is "what a
thing is," regarding which it does not err; as neither does sense
regarding its proper sensible object. So therefore the essences of
material things are in the intellect of man and angels, as the thing
understood is in him who understands, and not according to their real
natures. But some things are in an intellect or in the soul according
to both natures; and in either case there is intellectual vision.
Reply Obj. 3: If an angel were to draw his knowledge of material
things from the material things themselves, he would require to make
them actually intelligible by a process of abstraction. But he does
not derive his knowledge of them from the material things themselves;
he has knowledge of material things by actually intelligible species
of things, which species are connatural to him; just as our intellect
has, by species which it makes intelligible by abstraction.
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